Thursday, December 3, 2009

Companions: Why They Should Stay

Keen is frothing at the mouth. The latest TOR interview on GiantBomb is about companion characters and has elicited the responses from the community at large that one comes to expect in these days of gaming. Raging from fans on both sides of the issues about how it ruins the game. Personally, I lean towards of being in support of companion characters.

While there is always the chance that Bioware can horribly mess up the implementation, I feel overall that the idea would add a lot to the game.

1) How many times as a group have you been sitting there waiting for just one class? I know it has happened to me too many times. Being able to pop out a companion character to fill that role and get into the content faster would be an amazing addition.

2) How many times have you grouped with someone who didn't want to group, but was forced to to complete the quest? By allowing them to do it on their own, they aren't forced to do what they don't want to. This improves the quality of the members that actually want to group up.

3) It's been done before. Guild Wars, pet classes in any mmo, and on and on.

4) Companions and storytelling are Bioware's strengths. Why would they forsake that to go with what the other games are doing. They need to do what they do best for the best chance for the game to succeed. Doing what they aren't good at is a clear recipe for failure. Companions provide an anchor to the lore of the story, a chance for the game to recognize your accomplishments. It won't be like many MMOs where your achievements go completely unnoticed.